In the 1990's and early 00's, Linux was significantly more stable (and cheaper) than Windows. The infamous "blue screen of death" occurred frequently. Linux g

In the 1990's and early 00's, Linux was significantly more stable (and cheaper) than Windows. The infamous "blue screen of death" occurred frequently. Linux gained a lot in server-land compared to Windows for this reason. Windows has gotten more reliable in the last decade. It is rare that it out and out crashes anymore, but it still seems to start doing odd things that go away after rebooting. I would still pick Linux for reliability of the underlying OS any day. On the other hand, Linux was (still is) difficult for a typical end-user on the desktop. It was easier to install and operate software due to the Windows GUI etc. Linux has played catch up with GUI desktops etc. As far as development tools (I have developed both Windows and Unix software), Microsoft Visual Studio has some very nice features such as IntelliSense compared to the Unix/Linux vi/vim and emacs tools. Notably, emacs has the CEDET project which is working hard to add IntelliSense like capabilities to emacs. Bit by Git